Silk paint emotions

 Inspiration comes from many places. One of the things I learned early on in my life is that I'm happiest being happy. Many artists will say that they suffer, and that their suffering imbues their art with more feeling. I am not creative when I'm in emotional pain. Usually, instead of creating art, if I am hurting or upset, I curl up in a little ball and cry it out until I feel better. Sometimes I get drunk...yes, I know that alcohol is a depressant and that drinking to feel better doesn't work, that it's a horrible way to deal with my problems and that I will be judged for admitting it, but I figure that as long as it doesn't become a problem and I do it in the comfort of my own home or with people that I love and trust, then I can drink when I want to.

Every now and then, I have emotional pain that I can't cry away and I can't drink away, and it NEEDS an outlet. That's when I try to create with my pain. It never works. I can not express depression, loss, misery, or heartbreak through art. I express joy through art.

But I tried, and though the piece I ended up with was not as poignant or expressive as I wanted it to be, it did turn out to be a pretty painting.


And, most importantly, it did what I needed it to do, let me vent my emotions, take a step back from what I was feeling, and lock the pain away. I then had a few glasses of wine, called an old friend, cried some more, and woke up feeling purged, refreshed, and ready to get on with the art work that I do so well - Joyful art.

 I know that one of the purposes of art is to pull on the heart strings, so even though I do not often create art that expresses pain and the darker emotions, I certainly love others' work that does. Yet, when I paint, I am expressing joy, peace, a connection to nature, a fascination with imagination, and other generally pleasant emotions. I like to bring joy to others. I want people to look at my work and smile, feel peace, dream, and hope.

So, yesterday I put aside the darker emotions that I was feeling earlier in the week and chose to work on an idea I had been wanting to play with for a very long time - the wood nymph emerging from her tree.

I began with a sketch of the female form, focusing on where she would still be attached to the tree. When I transferred the sketch to silk, I made a few changes, choosing to elongate my nymph and increase the amount of hair she had, both for aesthetic reasons and because I could use the hair line down the left hand side of her body as a separation point for the dye.

When working with the resist lines, I am constantly trying to think ahead (like a chess or nine-ball game), I want to determine where the dye will want to go, how I will apply the dye to silk, where my color change lines will be, what techniques and colors I want to use, and whether or not I will have time to finish dyeing the area before the dye dries.

I was very satisfied with the outline of the piece, and started my dyeing with the leaves and some of the nymph's hair. I mixed 7 different shades and washes of green and applied them randomly to the leaves and some of the hair sections, then filled in the tree canopy with the same colors in spot dye application.

When it became time to fill in the body of the nymph and the tree, I started with the tree nymph's extremities, using a light red and brown wash and mixing in some darker browns. I wanted a slight textural contrast between the nymphs body and the bark of the tree, so I dyed the areas of the nymph that were separated from the rest of the tree by a resist barrier first, and then began on the arm, head, and leg that were open to the rest of the tree.

I used darker browns and some lighter browns over the top to create a patchy texture on the bark of the tree.

I then filled in the hair of the nymph with yellow and light reds. I checked all of my resist lines and then filled in the sky with a few light blue washes and water for texture. I chose olive and dark greens for the ground and used water to fade out the sections. I was extremely happy with the "rolling fields" feeling that I was able to create along the base of the piece.

Once I was finished, I let the dye dry and sat and stared at this silk painting for a few minutes. It's everything I wanted it to be, and more importantly, everything I needed. I feel peaceful again.

The Birth of a Silk Painting

It begins with a concept.

Sketch

I wanted a fire goddess type woman for my abstract series "bodies in motion."

Sometimes I look up images online or work from a photo that I've taken. More often than not, I sketch out what I'm planning prior to drawing resist lines.

This time, my sketch was representative - I chose a simple, curvaceous representation of the feminine, deciding to focus on the use of color and shading to portray the emotions of the figure.

I played with some background ideas and reworked my "fire" to the right of the central figure - the original sketch was too clean - I wanted a bit more chaos in my fire.

Resist on Silk

For this piece I chose to go straight to the resist lines, rather than sketching the line drawing on the silk. As the piece began to come together, I made some changes from the original drawing.

I increased the amount of hair that my goddess had, while keeping the pieces large enough for a bit of shading. At this stage it is particularly important to pay attention to the size of the space that will be dyed in reference to whether or not shading, multiple dyes, or water will be used in the painting process.

For this piece, I had no intention of flooding any of the resist lines. After the resist dried, I went back over the piece to make sure that there were no breaks in the lines. I also made some changes to my background, including the addition of a "shadow" at the base of the piece.

Starting to Paint

Once the resist lines are dry, I'm ready to start my favorite part of the process - the actual silk painting.

For a piece that is this intricate and large, I generally paint the details first. At this stage, if I flood a resist line or find a break in the resist, it is still possible (though difficult) to fix a mistake, so I paint areas where I am more likely to find a break (detailed areas with thin lines, such as my goddess' hair) first.

I begin by mixing a variety of washes in the set of colors that I plan to use - for this piece, I wanted the hair and the fire to emulate one another while staying distinct in color. To this end, I chose a red/brown color palette with highlights of orange and yellow for her hair.

I used water and the lighter washes to create fade effects in some pieces of the hair, while leaving some strands very flat. My hope was that when taken as a whole, the variety in technique and color would give an additional depth to the piece.

I allowed the hair to dry and then moved on to the main body of the figure.

I chose a fade technique within the body of the figure. At this point I am thinking ahead to how well the entire piece will contrast with the background colors that I have in mind. I know that I want a blue background at the top of the piece so I mix my colors for the central figure with purple so that there will be a distinct variation in the color of the background and the focal point of the piece.

Since this piece is the representation of a fire goddess, I used water to lighten and fade and mix streaks of dark blue and purple through the face and arms of the figure into the red and finally orange of the base.   

Next, I painted the fire using a color palette that was similar to the goddess' hair. I darkened my reds by using more concentrated dyes and put more emphasis on yellow. There are no browns in the fire, but I used a mix of techniques similar to the process by which the hair was dyed to keep these two portions of the piece similar yet distinct.

After the body and the flames dried, I began work on the background of the piece. I chose to start at the bottom and work up.

I chose a palette of brown/deep green and kelly green for the first section of background, knowing that I would eventually fade out the brown and move into blue greens and mostly blue for the other sections.

It was within the lowest section of the background that I encountered my first problem with this piece. The left hand resist line on my shadow didn't hold. I had a few options - I could have grabbed a hair drier, quickly dried my fabric and used alcohol and water to try and stop the bleeding, reinforced the resist line and then re paint the piece....but I decided to run with it.

I added water and purposely painted over my resist line, soaking the dye and letting it run. Since I still had a strong line to the right of my shadow, this process ended up producing a really beautiful "fuzzy" effect on one edge, and I'm pleased with this happy accident.

I continued fading the greens up the piece, finishing with a mix of cyan and navy/purple mixed with blue green edge in the final section of background. For the first three background sections I chose to work wet on wet - painting the silk with water before adding dye.

For the final section, I switched up my process and painted the dye directly on the dry silk, using water over washes to fade and mix the colors directly on the silk.

While the silk was still wet I added large crystals of sea salt in waves across the last section of background. The salt will absorb some of the dye, creating a random pattern of lighter splotches wherever the crystals are on the silk.

As I type this, the silk is drying. To finish, I will remove the silk from the stretcher frame, wrap it in news print, steam it for two hours, wash to remove the resist and excess dye, and iron to finish. The finished piece will measure 15x60 inches.